Wireless issues

[Smooth Operator 10]

Had Virgin Broadband installed and thought I'd save a few bob and use my old wireless router from AOL to give me a wireless connection. It's a Netgear router that came free when I was with AOL.

 

The problemo is that I can't get the fucking thing to work and I am loathe to spend £40 on a Virgin router.

 

I thought it would be a simple case of hooking up the ethernet cable from the modem Virgin installed into the back of the Netgear router and then connect from my laptop but it's not been as simple as that.

 

What am I doing wrong? Am I supposed to connect my router to the laptop first without the ethernet cable involved and if so how do I do that?

 

Unfortunately I've got no instructions to follow.

 

Cheers.

[Jimbo 175]

Taken from another forum:

 

Can't Connect To Router/Internet? - Tutorial

First of all, this mini-tutorial simply gives you the basic settings for a Windows XP PC - the same TCP/IP settings are for either a LAN or a Wireless connection to your router, and an ADSL or a Cable connection to the Internet.

 

It also assumes you have a little understanding of how to find your Network Connections.

 

Because this can only be a GENERIC set of instructions, you should AT LEAST attempt to read the manual to your router and set it up so that it can connect to your ISP. Every router make/model is different, so please be sure to read the manual BEFORE asking any supplementary questions.

 

No doubt someone will assist in this project by posting a list of links to the various manufacturers websites or wherever manuals can be found.

 

1 The Router

First of you, you should surf to the router's setup page (per the manual) and ensure that DHCP is enabled on the private side AND the public side.

 

Remember, the private (your) side is a server, whereas the public (your ISPs) side is a client. NAT (Network Address Translation) is what enables your PCs to communicate with the outside world.

 

A client receives a service, whereas a server provides a service, as the names imply. Your router is receiving a service from your ISP and it is providing a service to your computers.

 

{Internet - WWW etc} <-> [public side DHCP client{Router} private side DHCP server] <-> your computers

 

Your router probably has a Status page - it should say something like:

 

WAN Settings: -

 

Connection type: Dynamic IP

 

(unless you have been allocated a fixed IP number by your ISP - and even then, I have found that Dynamic IP works just as well, and you get your fixed IP number assigned because it is allied with your login name/password).

 

IP Address: a public routeable IP number

 

(this could be anything, but not anything starting 192.168 or 10.0. - and there are a number of others).

 

LAN Settings:-

 

IP Address - a non-routeable IP number

 

(ie 192.168.0.1)

 

DHCP Server - Enabled

 

2 The Computers

Go to each PCs Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) Properties for Local Area Connection (LAN) or Wireless connection, whichever applies.

 

You only need to set the TCPIP numbers manually if there is an error in your Router's configuration. As you've just ensured that DHCP is turned on, you should set your TCP/IP settings as follows: -

 

On the General Tab: -

 

Obtain an IP address automatically

Obtain DNS server address automatically

 

Click on the Advanced button.

 

Add a Default Gateway

Put the IP address of your router in here.

 

On many routers this will be 192.168.0.1 - on some others it will be 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.254 or 192.168.1.254 - but it could be in some other range - however, you can usually find this information in the Quick Start Guide OR somewhere in the Router's LAN settings. Anyway, I'm pretty certain you know which it is by now.

 

Ensure Automatic metric is also ticked.

 

The following settings can also be applied while in this "Advanced" mode.

 

Click on DNS and ensure "Append primary and connection specific DNS suffixes" and ensure there is also a tick in the "Append Parent Suffixes". Then tick Register this connection's address in DNS. (Not being a TCP/IP specialist, I'm not sure whether these are strictly required, but they work for me).

 

My WINS Tab setting also has "Enable LMHOSTS lookup" and Netios is set to Default.

 

My Options tab has Optional setting TCP/IP filtering, the properties of which are set to Permit All.

 

When you click on OK to complete the "Advanced" setup, check that the "Alternate Configuration" tab is set to Automatic private IP address.

 

Those settings should work for every router with the private side DHCP server working correctly. You should never need to set a static IP address with these settings. I would be more inclined to say that there was an inconsistent setting in the router.

 

However, you may need to set a fixed IP address if you intend using a file sharing system. This also means that you might need to configure your firewall - and is beyond the scope of this particular guide - that would be far too advanced for most users.

 

3 Firewalls

 

If you still cannot make a connection to your router and internet, it is possible that you have a software firewall installed. It might be ZoneAlarm, or one of several others.

 

ZoneAlarm & Other Firewalls

The key to ensuring all the PCs on your network can share printers, files and other services is to ensure that the each PC "trusts" the local area network.

 

But then, that's the key with every Personal Firewall (although some might be able to detect and configure themselves automatically, or by asking questions during installation).

 

For those that need instruction on how to do that with ZA Free: -

 

Double click on the ZA icon in the system tray.

 

ZA Control Panel appears.

 

Click "Firewall" on the left.

 

A page with two "Tabs" appears. Main & Zones.

 

Click the Zones Tab.

 

Bottom Right Corner of the Zones page, click Add>> And IP Range (it pops out to the right of the Add button).

 

Type into the two boxes the starting and ending address of your LAN: -

 

ie 192.168.0.0

192.168.0.254

 

Type LAN into the description.

 

Click OK and exit your way out of ZA - your finished.

 

Do that on every PC in your LAN.

 

If your PCs use other software firewalls, those firewalls may need to be similarly configured. But obviously I cannt post the instructions on how to do that for every known firewall, as they're all likely to have different ways of doing it. You should consult the manual

[Craig 6700]

Had Virgin Broadband installed and thought I'd save a few bob and use my old wireless router from AOL to give me a wireless connection. It's a Netgear router that came free when I was with AOL.

 

The problemo is that I can't get the fucking thing to work and I am loathe to spend £40 on a Virgin router.

 

I thought it would be a simple case of hooking up the ethernet cable from the modem Virgin installed into the back of the Netgear router and then connect from my laptop but it's not been as simple as that.

 

What am I doing wrong? Am I supposed to connect my router to the laptop first without the ethernet cable involved and if so how do I do that?

 

Unfortunately I've got no instructions to follow.

 

Cheers.

 

The way Virgin Broadband works is it registers the physical (MAC) address of the PC you set the broadband up on originally and aligns your connection to it. Therefore all will work swimmingly until you want to use a router (which has a MAC address of its own).

 

Most routers these days have a way around this by having a facility called 'MAC Address Cloning' built into it. This is usually something you can spot easily in the admin screen of your router (http://192.168.1.1 or something along those lines). If it doesn't jump out at you, stick your routers make and model and "mac address cloning" into google and search for it.

 

If it allows it then all you have to do is the following. On the computer that gets a live connection to the internet:

 

1. Click Start and then Run. In the dialog box type cmd and click the OK button

2. At the DOS prompt that appears, type ipconfig /all and hit return. This will give you a whole host of infomation, one of which is your Physical Address for your network card. It'll be something like 00-15-DF-11-EF-E0. Make a note of this...

3. Then wherever you manage MAC address cloning through the admin screen for the router, enter this Physical Address and save it.

 

The router has now cloned the MAC address of your PC and therefore will be able to successfully broadcast Wireless connections.

 

Good luck with it

[Jusoda Kid 1]

The kids not piss wise, he can barely open an application, he's gonna need more than luck